title: The correlation of hippocampal T2-mapping with neuropsychology test in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  1) To deduce T2, the inverse of the transverse relaxation rate (R2), in the hippocampus of healthy adults; 2) to investigate the brain iron deposition in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and age-matched healthy controls using T2-values.
  
  
  METHODS
  T2-weighted data from the bilateral-hippocampi of ten AD patients and sixty healthy controls were collected at six echo time points using multi-slice multi-echo turbo spin echo (MSME-TSE) imaging on a 3.0 T MR-scanner, followed by the neuropsychological testing. The correlations between T2-values and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores were investigated on group-wise basis (covariates in the group-wise analyses: gender, age, side and healthy/AD).
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were no significant differences in hippocampal T2-values on intra-gender and inter-gender basis (P > 0.05). Hippocampal T2-values of both sides were similar (right: 85.2±2.4 milliseconds; left: 85.3±2.5 milliseconds). The bilateral hippocampal T2 values correlated moderately with age (right: r = -0.59; left: -0.58; P < 0.001). The AD-group had significantly lower T2-values in the hippocampus when compared to normal controls (P < 0.001) and such low T2-values had a strong positive correlation with the MMSE score (R (2) = 0.97; P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients with AD showed significantly lower T2 values, which can be attributed to the increased iron depositions in the hippocampus. A positive correlation between T2-values and cognition scores suggests that quantitative T2 can be used in the early diagnosis of AD and in the monitoring of the treatment response.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Xiamen University, Xiamen, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhuren
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Xiongjie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhuang
authors.forename: Dushyant
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Xiurong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Cen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yue
authors.forename: Chengkun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Jiancheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lv
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000737:chemistry / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007501:Iron / Q000032:analysis*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012737:Sex Factors
chemical_list: D007501:Iron